Developing a neuroprotective therapy for Parkinson’s and Huntington’s diseases

Abstract

Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Huntington’s disease (HD) are slow and progressive neurological disorders that affect the lives of many thousands of patients and their families. Both diseases are characterized by selective neurodegeneration in specific brain areas, which causes long-term suffering and, ultimately, death. Although symptomatic treatment is available for Parkinson’s patients, therapies that inhibit disease progression are not available. Significant progress has been made in our understanding of the pathological process, although the precise molecular mechanisms causing neuronal dysfunction and death remain elusive. Despite differences in the clinical manifestations of PD and HD, there are striking similarities in the underlying pathological processes. These observations suggest common pathways of neurodegeneration and tempt researchers to focus their efforts on pathological processes shared by both diseases. This article reviews some of the recent literature and discusses the feasibility of discovering neuroprotective agent(s) for treating PD and HD in the near future.

Keywords::

• creatine
• HDAC
• Huntington’s disease
• neurodegeneration
• neuroprotection
• PARP-1
• Parkinson’s disease
• sirtuin

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to my colleagues at MassGeneral Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease (MIND), A Young and S Hersch, for support and stimulating discussions. I am especially thankful to L Crews, PhD, a patent attorney at Fish & Richardson PC for critical review of the manuscript and useful suggestions.

Notes